


i will find any way to your wild heart

by kattyshack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 00:16:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10231268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattyshack/pseuds/kattyshack
Summary: When Daenerys visits Winterfell to ensure the kingdom's well-being, she realizes what had her nephew brooding so during his tenure in the South. Indeed, the Queen in the North is a striking thing, in beauty and persona alike. It's no wonder Jon couldn't bear to be parted from her. Now, it's Daenerys' intent to ensure that he never has to be.Targaryen men always did love their Stark women, after all. It's only a matter of getting them to act reasonably about it.(work and chapter titles from "wild heart," by bleachers)





	1. as i sat with the echoes

When Jon writes that he and the Southern guard are riding North, Sansa is thrust into a panic for a straight fortnight. She does not let anyone see—although Bran and Arya, perceptive as they are, certainly know—but anxiety flutters in her gut day in, day out, and she wishes they would just bloody  _get here_ so she might put her mind to rest. 

Daenerys had not been terribly pleased when the North declared independence from her rule. But Jon had been so instrumental in the battle against the White Walkers that she had little choice but to agree. Once she had been assured that her nephew did not covet her spot on the Iron Throne, Daenerys _had_ been more accommodating, but all the same… Sansa had heard too many tales of this Dragon Queen to be put entirely at ease. 

It had not helped when Jon passed his kingship to her, either. After all, what opinion could the queen of the Seven Kingdoms have for a usurper—more or less, Sansa thinks—such as herself? Bran serves as reigning lord of Winterfell for tradition’s sake, but the North needs guidance when he goes off to play the Three-Eyed Raven (whatever that means, Sansa is never quite sure). Although declared king by their bannerman, Jon had stepped aside after the winter had come and gone, and insisted that the Northern crown was Sansa’s alone. 

“It never should have been mine,” Jon told her when she at first refused. “I don’t want it, Sansa. You won Winterfell, and you kept it when I went beyond the Wall. Our people looked to you for strength. You kept them alive with little else but hope. With your faith in me.”

It looked as though he wanted to continue, but he’d stopped himself with one long, laborious breath that Sansa would wonder at for moons to come. He spoke again before she could ask what was wrong.

“I’m going to bend the knee to you whether you like it or not,” he said, as though that settled the matter. “Don’t think the Northerners won’t follow. If we’re going to name you queen, I think it best for you to accept the title.” 

Sansa didn’t mean to, but she  _ harrumphed  _ and then pouted. Jon’s eyes softened when he took her hands in his. Her heart had leapt, and little did she know that his scrambled up and down his ribcage at the soft press of her skin against his.

“Sansa.” He had said her name so quietly, more tender even than his touch. “I know you want this. You were made to be queen. I know it’s not King’s Landing the way you wished it were—”

“I haven’t wished that for a long time, Jon.”

“I know. I know you haven’t, sweet girl.” Jon’s thumbs swept across her palms. “That’s why I want you here. You belong in the North—we both do. And Arya, and Bran. We  _ all  _ do.”

The question came unbidden, but it nevertheless tumbled from between Sansa’s lips: “Then why are you leaving?”

Jon disentangled their fingers to pull her close. One hand clutched her hip, and the other cradled the nape of her neck. It was foolish to fold her into his arms like that, Jon knew at the time and thought since. If he kept bringing her into his orbit, there would be a time that he couldn’t release her without fear of floating into the heavens above. 

“It’s not forever,” he promised into her lush red hair that always smells of roses and snow and home. “Only for a time—three moons at most, less if I can help it. I’ll write. I’ll be back before you think to notice I’m gone.” 

Sansa had not wanted to burden him with her fears. But he had divested her of so many now that she thought him used to it, and she had grown too accustomed to honesty with him. It had taken time, but once she opened her heart to him, it had been _liberating_. Sansa had forgotten what it meant to trust without it being broken. 

So now, encased in his arms, more at home than she’d felt anywhere else in the world, she had asked, “What if you wish to stay?”

“Sansa…” Jon’s lips ghosted across her hairline. It was as far as he’d let them go. “I promise you, there is nothing in this world that would keep me from you now. Please believe me.”

She could do nothing but shut her eyes and hold him tighter, which he took for acquiescence enough and it helped to quell the guilt flaming in his soul. She had to believe him, and she did. Jon had always kept his promises. 


	2. to come home, to be brave

Sansa is pacing the courtyard when the Southern guard returns to Winterfell. Jon is front and foremost, although she’s sure she would have spotted him anywhere in the small crowd. There is nothing particularly resplendent about him, not after a month’s journey, and not when riding alongside Daenerys’ motley crew of Dothraki, Unsullied, and Westerosi alike. Jon is nowhere near as richly garbed or regal or flamboyant—Jon is grounded, dressed in solid Stark colors, his hair wild and longer than she remembered. 

But he is precisely who he has always been. Sansa’s heart settles into a security she had not known in so many years, but she can rest easy when he smiles at her. 

Jon is less a man and more an amalgamation of sweat and grime and dirt from the road, but he catches Sansa in his arms as soon as he dismounts his horse. No matter how long he spends away, when he returns to Winterfell it feels like the first time, all over again. Relief washes over him when he feels Sansa’s breath on his neck; it makes gooseflesh of his skin, but she is alive, she is here, she has been waiting for him all the while. He could have endured another turn of the moon on the Kingsroad if he knew he would be with her again. 

“I told you it wouldn’t be long,” Jon murmurs, although it had felt like a lifetime. He pulls away, just to look at her—eyes bright and face flushed from cold, and _smiling_. Gods, but that smile could knock a man to his knees.  

“Where are the others?”

“Arya and Gendry took Bran to the godswood. They’ve camped out there for almost a week,” Sansa says apologetically, although Jon doesn’t seem to mind their absence. Her siblings had reconciled their post-war issues differently than she, preferring to return to their normal routines as best they could. She does not begrudge them this, and envies them only a little. 

“I’ve sent word of your arrival, but—forgive me, Your Grace—” Sansa spots Daenerys astride her horse. She pulls away from Jon to curtsy. “My apologies, but I wouldn’t expect my brother and sister to return sooner than they’re ready. Arya only said they’d return for the feast, but I imagine they’ll be late.”  

Unperturbed by the dearth of Starks to welcome her, Daenerys says, mildly surprised, “You’ve prepared a feast?”

“Excuse my aunt,” Jon says in clipped tones. “She’s not quite used to how we do things in Westeros, having never been before the war.”

Amused, Daenerys lifts an eyebrow. Jon had been testy with her from the start. Had it not been for the shared goal of defeating the White Walkers, Daenerys is sure their disagreements would have remained insurmountable. But no matter. Jon does his duty, even if it had cost her a kingdom to get him to do it. When she sees the way he hovers ever so slightly in front of Sansa, as though to shield her if need be, Daenerys at last understands why he would have abdicated his Northern throne for her. 

She thinks of her brother, Jon’s father. Rhaegar Targaryen had started a war for Lyanna Stark, and Jon had gone to a seemingly unbeatable one for Sansa when they reclaimed Winterfell. If Daenerys was not mistaken, she would venture that Jon would do it all over again, too. 

No wonder the man had sulked in the South, she thinks now, when something so warm was waiting for him in the North all along. 

“Excuse my nephew,” Daenerys says as she slips easily from her steed and walks forward. “He and I have differing political views that, apparently, cannot be reconciled.” She smiles at a curious Sansa. “My methods are unsavory to him.”

Jon says nothing, but the tight-lipped look on his face is agreement enough. 

“No matter now,” Daenerys continues, for it looks as though her nephew wishes to brood again, and she so hates it when he broods. She enjoys men who are wild and flashy and reckless and partial to a grin, like Drogo and Daario had been, so Jon’s rather somber company proves to be a drain on her. “The wars are behind us for now, so with any good fortune Jon will forgive or at least put aside my indiscretions, as he describes them.” 

“Why don’t we head inside?” Jon says, all but ignoring his aunt’s jibes. He puts a hand to Sansa’s elbow to lead her. “You’ll catch your death out here; how long have you been waiting?” 

“I came out this morning, but honestly, Jon…” Sansa allows herself to be steered towards the doors, but reprimands him all the same. “I’m used to the cold. In case you’ve forgotten, we both live here.” 

Daenerys doesn’t try to hide her chuckle. She and Jon may have fire in their blood, but this Stark woman has it in her tongue.  _ Quite the match_, she thinks, but decides to let Jon have some time alone with the girl before she points it out. 


	3. why did they have to go and do us like that?

The feast is a grand affair—loud and bawdy and carefree. The food is rich and the wine flows plentiful, and the band strikes up one lively tune after the next. Winterfell’s hall is alive with laughter and clinking glasses and clapping hands. It is a time after war, and the North’s cold severity does not diminish its joys.

Daenerys had come to the North to ensure that it was in good hands, and that Winterfell was able to provide to those around it. It may be a kingdom independent of her rule, but Daenerys is not about to breed tension by refusing a visit. Now, she is quite glad of her advisors, although she suspects Tyrion and Varys alike had wished to make the trip for their own designs as well. 

Her most trusted advisors had come to make amends with the Lady Sansa, so it would seem. Daenerys had already overheard Varys give his condolences for all she had lost, and express a touch of pride that is quite uncharacteristic of him. Despite his freedom from the Lannisters’ reign, Varys continues to play his cards close to the chest. You never quite know what the man is thinking. But Daenerys sees his sincerity when he gives her support and counsel, and tonight, she sees the same genuine affection when he looks upon Sansa. 

Daenerys had heard tell that Varys had conspired to remove Sansa from King’s Landing during the war, working with the Lady Olenna to marry her into a position at Highgarden. Of course, that had come to naught, and Sansa had been forced to wed Tyrion instead. Tyrion had expressed to Daenerys that neither of them had consented to the match, but upon their reunion there was little else but respect and camaraderie between them. Daenerys is glad of it; the last thing she needs is an independent kingdom turning against her. Her ties to Tyrion are especially useful in that regard. 

Now, amidst all the gayety, Daenerys watches the Lady Sansa, and tries to determine who, precisely, she is. They had met briefly before the war against the White Walkers, but it had hardly been enough time for Daenerys to get a feel for her. And afterwards, Jon had told her precious little about his Queen in the North. 

“She’s beautiful,” he’d said. “She’s strong. Resilient. Indeed, she’s rather like you, Your Grace, apart from your partiality to mass murder.” 

“Hmm, I like her already,” Daenerys had said at the time, and she had discovered since that she was indeed fond of the lady, this daughter of Winterfell. Not as fond of her as Jon is, but… Daenerys takes a sip of wine. That’s to be expected, since her nephew is quite obviously besotted with the girl. 

She had had a twinge of suspicion when he joined her in the South and spoke so little of Sansa, but very much of his siblings-turned-cousins, Bran and Arya. He talked freely and enthusiastically of them, even laughing a time or two when he remembered a tale from their childhood. But when he spoke of Sansa, it was careful and guarded, as though he were trying to keep her secrets close. At those times, his tone and expression betrayed a tenderness Daenerys had not seen in a man since Khal Drogo rejoiced when they conceived their since-lost son. 

Now, Daenerys sees that same look—softness, reverence—in Jon’s gaze upon Sansa. 

Although she won’t boast all the credit, Daenerys takes some for herself, as she had commissioned the gown for Sansa from Essos as a gift. She had thought to order one for Arya as well, but Jon had assured her that the younger Stark daughter had never reveled in such things. Daenerys catches a glimpse of Arya now, clad in trousers, tunic, and vest, and is pleased that she did not waste the gold on anything else. But Sansa… Well, Daenerys is happy to admit her smugness when the Northern queen turns so many heads.

Jon hadn’t been particularly happy when he’d seen what Daenerys was planning to give Sansa. His eyebrows had shot up so far on his brow that they were in danger of dislocating entirely, and he’d spluttered—quite unbecoming of a war hero, Daenerys thinks—“You can’t give her  _that_.” 

When she had demanded why not, Jon had only spluttered some more. “Sansa doesn’t wear things like that. Because we’re in the _North_. It’s  _ cold _ here.” 

“Oh, Jon, please,” Daenerys had scoffed, and that had been the end of it.

It’s true that Essos fashion isn’t exactly fit for the northern climate, Daenerys admits privately. But she and the ladies in her retinue sport the same fashion tonight, so it’s not as though she’s put Sansa on display. Besides, she’s quite the fetching picture in the flowing pastel silks that Daenerys and Missandei determined complementary to Sansa’s fair coloring (which had been described with rather telling detail by Jon during his tenure in King’s Landing). Her shoulders and arms are bare, and the neckline is cut shorter than most Westerosi garb. But Sansa wears it with finesse and confidence, which in Daenerys’ opinion is the real test of whether or not such dress is suitable for whichever sort of weather. 

And if it gets her usually closed-off nephew to openly gape at the girl… Well, then, Daenerys thinks, smug again. All the better. 

Not that he would think to say anything to Sansa about it. A disappointing development, Daenerys thinks, but expected. At least the other Starks had something to say, which put the spotlight on Jon as much as Daenerys could have hoped for.

“Bloody hell,” Arya says, not unkindly. “That’s some dress.”

“I don’t know whether you’re insulting me or not,” Sansa laughs. 

“Of course I’m not.” Arya snorts, rather offended. “But as if you don’t get enough marriage offers as it is…” She shakes her head and her lips twitch upwards. “I’ll be shocked into bed rest if at least half a dozen men don’t proclaim their love for you this evening alone. Or I’ll vomit, at least.”

“You look beautiful, Sansa,” Bran says, and kisses his sister on the cheek. He smirks a bit in Jon’s direction, but Daenerys is the only one who notices. Quite the perceptive lad, she thinks, but of course that comes with the Three-Eyed Raven’s territory. 

Jon takes a hasty draw of ale and says nothing. Daenerys wants to pinch him, but she silently forgives him for his ineptitude when he stares at Sansa the rest of the night. It’s actually _wistful_ , which would amuse Daenerys to no end if she weren’t so exasperated. After all, she can’t stay in Winterfell forever to orchestrate this romance; she needs to know that Jon can handle it himself, rather than ignore its potential. 

So she watches Jon watch Sansa, and she learns so much in those longing, furtive looks. Sansa returns them all in kind, but of course Jon doesn’t notice, and Sansa is never looking at him when he’s gazing so at her. His hands twitch like he wants to touch her, but he tends to resist. He whispers to her, and stares at her mouth in a matter so scandalous that Daenerys wonders how no one else has noticed. 

Jon does not dance. But he offers Sansa his hand when she wants to. 

“I’ve seen that look before,” Tyrion says as the pair slip away to the floor for a dance. He takes Jon’s vacated seat beside Daenerys to keep the conversation between them. “What have you been plotting?”

“Not a thing,” Daenerys says so airily that she wouldn’t believe her, either. 

“Hmm…” Tyrion’s gaze follows hers to where Jon and Sansa stand, his hand on her waist and hers on his shoulder. There’s a great blush creeping up Jon Snow’s neck as they move apart and together again in the dance; and a look in Sansa’s eye that Tyrion had only seen once before, when the lady had spoken to Ser Loras. It was all giddy hopefulness, such that Sansa could not have hoped to have before, but perhaps now… “They make a fine couple, don’t they?” 

Daenerys offers him a wry grin. “How is it that you always know what I’m thinking?”

“Someone’s got to. Snow certainly doesn’t, or else I’m sure he would have locked himself in his chambers all night just to avoid you.” 

“He wouldn’t avoid me if it meant missing Sansa in that dress.” 

“You dishonor him so.”

Daenerys laughs. “Well he’s got to wed _someone_ , hasn’t he? I’m not to have any more children. And the Targaryens have lost the throne too long to lose it again on such a technicality.” 

“I wouldn’t phrase it quite that way to him,” Tyrion advises. “He’s nearly as honorable as Ned. He wouldn’t do a thing that might cause Sansa even the slightest discomfort. Although if you wish to speak to him of the bedding ceremony, I’m sure it would be worth a laugh. He’ll turn as red as his soon-to-be lady wife’s hair.”

“That’s presumptuous, considering you think Jon will refuse.”

“Only if Sansa doesn’t wish it. But if we’re being honest…” Tyrion looks pointedly back to the couple on the floor. “I don’t know that I’ve seen a girl want anything more. And I’m quite popular at the most well-reputed brothels, if you didn’t know. I know quite a bit about a girl’s wants.” 

Daenerys snorts into her goblet. “Quite so, my dear Hand.”  

* * *

It’s late when Daenerys has a chance to speak to Sansa, but by then she knows enough to cement her decision.

“You’re quite the hostess, my lady,” Daenerys compliments. She’s not quite able to refer to another as _queen_ , but Sansa seems to accept her words for what they’re worth. 

“My lady mother taught me well,” she says. 

“And did Catelyn Tully make heads turn the way you did tonight as well?” 

Jon chokes on his ale. Sansa’s eyes flick towards him, but Daenerys ignores her nephew’s coughs. He’s always cross with her, so she’s happy to give him an actual reason to be. 

“She was indeed beautiful,” Sansa says fondly of her late mother, whose fine Tully looks had captured the hearts of many a man. But it had been her fierce spirit that had kept Eddard Stark’s attentions. “Although I daresay she never wore such a gown. My mother was always partial to the more—well, modest looks,” Sansa finishes apologetically, but Daenerys waves her off.

“I’m used to a different way of living,” she says in way of explanation. “And if you have no objections, you’ll be receiving similar gifts from me in future. You wear that dress too well to only have one. Don’t you think so, Jon?”

Jon nearly upends his cup. “I—well, of course I do. Sansa wears everything well.” 

What a stupid thing to say, Daenerys thinks. She would quite like to pinch him again. 

Thinking it best to refrain, she contents herself with an eye-roll and a “Quite the romantic, my nephew.”

“Excuse—” Jon begins to say, but halts when he sees Sansa’s pink face. What must she be embarrassed about? he wonders. When her eye catches his, she looks away quickly, but… Jon tries to quell that feeling in his gut. That tingling, fluttering feeling that makes his insides do backflips. The one that makes his face hot and his voice nervous. The one that makes him feel right foolish when he thinks of it later, always wondering what could have compelled him to believe that Sansa would ever look at him with such want. 

Daenerys only rolls her eyes again, then smiles at Sansa. She cups her cheek in a kind, motherly gesture. “Jon’s right. I’m sure you’re quite the beauty in anything. Men will no doubt write songs about you.”   


“Thank you, Your Grace,” Sansa says graciously, ever the lady, “but I’m afraid I don’t much care for songs anymore.”

It’s not quite true. Sansa’s once-lost faith is being restored, hope by reckless hope, and for that she is more grateful than anything. She had lost near everything, only to win it back for herself; that was indeed something to write songs about. And yet… Her gaze catches Jon’s, always so easy to read and yet unfathomable all the same. There was always something more than she could grasp, an undercurrent to the care and affection in the way he looks at her. 

Or perhaps that was just another foolish hope, a vestige of the girl she had once been. It feels as though a fist of iron clenches around her heart; whether it’s meant to protect or suffocate her, she doesn’t know. All she knows is that, despite everything, she’s still not allowed to have what she wants. _Who_ she wants. 

She had thought, a few times, fleetingly, that she had something to offer besides her lands and titles. But then she’d run a finger along a scar, or catch herself drifting off thoughtlessly for nearly an hour, or she would awake in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, and she wasn’t the girl she used to be. She is grateful for that, too, for the girl she used to be wouldn’t have wanted him as the woman she’s become does. And even if she can’t have him… Well. Loving him has rekindled a piece of her she thought to be long lost. 

But—there always was a _but_ , wasn’t there?—that didn’t make it any easier to sit beneath the weight of his gaze. Not when there were a thousand things she wanted to say and no way to say them. 

“If you’ll excuse me,” Sansa says, and with no other preamble, she offers a brief curtsy before sweeping from the hall. 

Daenerys watches her go, curious and a bit heartbroken for the pain she’d seen in the other queen’s eyes. She turns to Jon. 

“You’ve been rather reticent on the subject of Sansa’s history. What happened to her?”

Jon’s answering thoughts are too wrought with bitterness for him to stop them forming into words: “Everything she never deserved.” 

“Hm.” Daenerys would drink to that. But first it seemed that she had to sort out the tenderness peeking out from under her nephew’s quiet anger. She wonders if he thought himself clever for hiding it so well; but she would have him know that he hadn’t hidden a thing. She’d felt something in the air of Winterfell as soon as she’d stepped upon northern ground. 

And Jon Snow’s depthless eyes are no mystery to her—indeed, her nephew is the most open of books, if only one knew how to read him. He had been restless during his days in King’s Landing, so impatient to return home that Daenerys had asked more than once who was waiting for him there. 

“My family,” he’d insisted. Daenerys had only half-believed him; now she sees that she’d been right. 

Daenerys lifts an inquisitive brow at him, but Jon doesn’t notice. Like most everyone in the hall, Jon is several cups deep into his drink, which will only make her task easier. Open book he may be, but he’s not usually keen on allowing anyone to peruse him, even if it is for his own good.  

“And what does the Lady Sansa deserve?” she wants to know, although she suspects she already does. 

Jon snorts. “What do you think?”

“I know what I think,” Daenerys replies coolly. “I want to know what you see when you look at her.”

There is a pause, which Jon breaks with another swig of wine and more bitterness. “The world. The whole bloody world.”

_Just_ _so_. “And would you give that to her?” 

His smile is sad, and for a moment she thinks he’ll say nothing to accompany it. And then… “I would give her anything she asked.”

“Why don’t you ask her, then?”   


“For what?”   


Daenerys huffs impatiently. “Sewing lessons. Her _hand_ , Jon. Ask her to marry you. She’d make a fine match for any man, but I can’t say that just _any_ man would be a fine match for her in turn. She’s the perfect woman for a Targaryen prince, strong enough in both name and person to uphold our family dynasty, and it was no small compliment for me to say that men will write songs about her—I daresay they’ll all describe the look in your eye whenever she walks in the room. It’s quite striking enough to make men thousands of years from now fall in love with her just as ardently as you have.”  

“I’m not—” Jon starts to say, but stops himself this time. What’s the use in denying it? There’s no reason why he shouldn’t love her, only that he’s sure she couldn’t love him the same. There had been too many mistakes, too many wrongs in her past. He feels fortunate enough that she lets him touch her as family does; he couldn’t ask her to permit his touches as a lover, a husband, no matter how he keeps himself awake at night thinking of them. 

“I can’t ask her to do that.” His voice is all dejection, and Daenerys won’t have it.

“And why not?” she asks with genuine curiosity. “Would you do anything but love her?”

“It’s not about that,” Jon snaps. He doesn’t want to explain it to anyone else; it’s hard enough to convince himself not to go after Sansa the way he wants. “It’s about how she feels for me. I can’t ask her to marry me just because it’s what _I_ want.”

Daenerys’ eyebrow is up again. She had thought to hand Jon the reigns, but if he’s going to be stubborn for no reason… “Fine. Ask her because it’s what  _I_ want. It’s what I command.” 

“You’re not my queen, Daenerys,” Jon says coolly, the Stark ice in his veins coating his words. “The North isn’t yours.”

“You’re still my family. My  _ only _ family,” Daenerys reminds him. “When my time on the Iron Throne is done, you know that I expect you to take on its responsibility. If not you, then it will fall to whatever family you leave behind. You can’t make a family without a wife, and I won’t command you take any wife but Sansa. The North may have seceded, but I need an alliance with it nonetheless, and I wouldn’t pawn my only family off to just anyone, besides.”

“Sansa shouldn’t be pawned off, either,” he argues. 

“She’ll have to wed, too, Jon. Don’t you see that?” Daenerys could kill him for a fool. She’s handing him precisely what he wants, and he’s all but refusing. “You must. Bran will have no children, and there’s no guarantee that Arya will, either. I can’t take that chance, you can’t take that chance. If we do, our names will die with us. Are you really willing to snuff out the Stark and Targaryen dynasties, all because you’re too laden with self-doubt to have what you want?” 

Jon scowls. He can’t deny her logic, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. 

“She deserves better than me.”

“Well.” Daenerys takes another dainty sip of wine. The subject is all but closed, but she still wants the last word. “Why don’t you ask her before you assume what she wants? It seems to me that you’ve been deciding what’s best for her.”

Jon opens his mouth to argue some more, but Daenerys lifts a hand to stop him. 

“Perhaps it was for the best of intentions,” she allows, “but she’s a woman who doesn’t require you to shield her from everything, and that includes your own obvious affection for her. It’s time you let her decide for herself.”

“And if she says no?” Jon asks, but is left unanswered. Daenerys won’t dignify that idiocy with a response. 


	4. now it's only you that matters

Jon finds Sansa in the godswood the next morning. God, but she looks beautiful sitting beneath the heart tree—hair as red as its leaves, skin as white as its bark, ethereal as its history. They would wed beneath this tree, Jon realizes, and he tries not to think of her in her maiden’s cloak before he can even ask if it’s what she wants. 

He doesn’t even know how he’s going to ask. He’d lain awake all night, obsessing over what to say and how to say it, what she might say in return. Jon remembers the girl Sansa had once been, head full of stories and heart full of songs. She wasn’t lying last night when she told Daenerys of her lost love for such things. Jon could not remember when he last heard her sing; it was as though she had forgotten all the words, and all he wants is to give them back to her. 

Could he say that? he wonders now as Sansa stands to greet him. He takes her offered hands and kisses her cheek, and when the scent of roses overcomes him he thinks he has never been more tongue-tied in all his life.

“Morning,” he says, and even that comes out choked. He clears his throat. “I didn’t expect to find you here, but Bran said you were.”

“Were you looking for me?” There’s a crease between Sansa’s eyebrows as she frowns, confused. “I’m sorry, did we have accounts to review? Repairs to oversee? I must have forgotten—”

“No, nothing like that,” Jon assures her, although he doesn’t know that the business he does have with her is assuring at all. 

He takes a breath and stares at their hands, still joined, as though their contact is all that’s keeping him anchored to this earth where he belongs. Here, in the godswood, in the North. With Sansa. There has to be a reason why they had found each other first during the war. She had come to him, beaten and ragged but never broken. Her confidence—her  _ arrogance _ ,  so different from the sort she’d had growing up—had knocked him back a few steps. No matter how they’d argued, Jon would have died for her. He almost did, until she had saved him. 

“Jon?” Sansa’s voice disrupts his study of her butter-smooth gloves. He meets her eye again, unsure as ever when their gazes lock. “What is it?”  

Her expression is one of the utmost concern, almost like she’s waiting for a blow to come to disturb the calm they had built. Perhaps that’s what this is, but Jon tries not to think of it as such. He can’t soothe her if he’s a mess of doubts and uncertainties. 

“I need to ask you—Sansa, please know that whatever you say, it won’t change my feelings,” Jon tells her. For all that he can’t express, at the same time he needs her to know that it’s all the truth. “I know we’ve had our differences, but I hope that since then we’ve put them behind us. I wouldn’t think of asking if I thought you still angry with me.”

“That’s long past,” Sansa is quick to reassure. Her heart is skipping up and down in her chest and she wishes he would ask, whatever it is, so that she might be at ease again. “Jon, please, just ask before I think something’s gone terribly wrong.”

“No—well, I hope it’s not terrible, but—” Sansa’s hands twitch in his grip and Jon can’t dance around it any longer. “Sansa, I want you to marry me.”   

Her eyes widen, and her hands slip from his. _ “Oh.” _

“I’m sorry,” he blurts.  _ Stupid stupid stupid. _ He wants to kick himself for not taking more care, for not being even the slightest bit romantic as she deserves. “That wasn’t quite the way I—I could have done that better. There are a thousand things I could have said.”   

“No, Jon, it’s alright,” Sansa is quick to say. She only wishes she could have been quicker to accept. “You only surprised me, that’s all.” 

“I’m sorry,” Jon repeats. He pauses, wondering whether he should continue or just run off as if none of this had happened. But he is struck by a sudden sense of selfishness. He wants this, wants Sansa, and he wants her forever. He can’t run away from that.

So he continues, “I know this comes as a shock, and I know it isn’t what you always imagined. But I would be good to you,” he swears, more ardently than he had ever sworn anything before. “I promise.”

Sansa does not give herself a moment to think before asking—her emotions are running too high to think it through, her heart all but falling from her sleeve when she asks, “Do you love me?” 

_God, but of course I do,_ he wants to say—almost, in the span of a heartbeat, does say it. And then he wonders if it would be fair to her, if she does not love him back. This time, he keeps his confession to himself, and he tells her, “I want to take care of you. I want to keep you safe. I promised I’d protect you, and I meant it. For as long as you need, I want to be here for you.” 

Jon takes her hands again and squeezes. His words are quiet and doused with a feeling that Sansa can’t place, a feeling she cannot allow herself to believe. “Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you.” 

She wishes he would have said a simple _yes_ , but she thinks it might be there, between the lines. Is it enough? She doesn’t think so, and it stings more than her scars have in ages. 

He wishes he could have said _I do_ , but he hopes she’ll take what he gives her now. He doesn’t want her to think him selfish, that he’s offering himself to her only because he wants her. He wants her to know that this is all for her, that it’s her choice to take him or leave him as she wishes. Anything she wants, it’s hers. 

“Jon…” Sansa begins to say, with no real idea of a destination. 

“You don’t have to say yes,” he assures her. The prospect of her rejection feels like an arrow to his heart, but Jon can’t begrudge her her choice in the matter. He won’t. “I’ll go to Daenerys and tell her it’s not what you want. Do you wish to rule the North alone? Is there—” he swallows, hard and painful— “someone else you wish to wed?”

“Oh, Jon. No. There’s no one else,” she swears.  _ Anyone else but Jon?  _ Her heart breaks at the mere thought of it. “I only—it’s stupid. I’m being stupid again.”

He takes her chin in his hand so she’ll look at him. “Tell me.”

“I thought that someone might love me,” she spills, once more unable to help herself. “Or I wished it. I hadn’t believed for so long—after Joffrey, Ramsay, all of Littlefinger’s machinations, everything—but I’d started… I thought that perhaps—”

“Sansa, I—”

“No, you don’t have to say anything,” Sansa interrupts quickly. She does not wish to hear his excuses. She does not want to hear the reasons why he doesn’t love her as she so desperately wants him to. She had said  _ someone _ , but she’d meant  _ you _ . Him. Jon. Someone brave and gentle and strong, as her father had once promised and she’d been too over-her-head in naivete to accept. 

Maybe he would not love her, Sansa thinks as she looks upon him. Jon is all concerned eyes and furrowed brow, somehow looking at her as though she’d hung the moon but uncertain of whether or not he wants the moon at all. But he is good, and he’ll be good to her.

“Of course I’ll marry you.” 

“Sansa…” Now his hands cradle her face. He wants to tell her how much she makes his heart ache, how much he loves her. Perhaps better yet, he wants to take her mouth and  _ show  _ her. But everyone has always done nothing but take from her. Jon wishes only to give. He doesn’t try to hide his smile. “You’ve made me so happy. Do you believe me?”

She doesn’t know how she can, and yet the crinkles at the corners of his eyes tell her that her doubts are wrong. She meets him grin for grin. “I do.” 

“I only want to make you happy in return.” His gloved fingertips trace the sharp line of her cheekbones, from her temples to the corners of her lips. Jon can’t help when his gaze flicks there, to her mouth. He leans in, every so slightly and completely involuntarily, like he’s drawn to her…

Sansa’s eyes flit over his face, searching for more of what she thinks she sees in the way that he looks at her.  _ Is this love?  _ she wonders, for she had not seen it in a man’s eyes before—not when he looked upon her. There had been greed, and mockery, and lust, but never this. Never had she seen a man look at her as Jon does. Beneath his gaze, she feels like a precious thing; she feels like someone who could be loved by the sort of man she once dreamed of, the sort of man she no longer believed in. And yet Jon looks at her, and she begins to believe again.  

Jon’s voice is hoarse when he speaks her name again, so quiet she can barely hear it over the breeze, but she feels it ghost across her lips. 

“You can kiss me,” Sansa tells him, her voice no louder than his own, “if you want to.” 

He had only been waiting for her to ask. She’s hardly a breath away, and he closes the distance in an instant. Her lips are dry and cold and so, so inviting; they part with a gentle press of his tongue, and when he tastes her…

_ God. _ Jon moans so richly, so deliciously, into her mouth that Sansa can feel it reverberate all the way down to her toes. His hands fall from her face to her arms to tug her closer, unable to get enough of her. Sansa steps on his toes in her efforts to get nearer, to press her body flush against his, but of course Jon doesn’t complain. One arm encircles her waist, and his other hand grips the back of her neck to control the angle of the kiss. His fingers twist into her hair while hers clutch at the front of his cloak. 

It’s fast, and unexpected. Jon had not thought she would be so enthusiastic at his touch, and Sansa hadn’t thought he’d intended to kiss her at all. But she can feel the fire of his touch through the layers that separate them, and her tongue sweeps over his so expertly it’s as though they’ve done this a thousand times before. 

Jon is panting into her mouth like a green boy. But when his fingers bite into her hip, she arches against him and moans, and Jon forgets to be embarrassed. Sansa is sure to feel his growing arousal that’s pressed so tantalizingly against her center, but she doesn’t balk or pull away; no, her hips roll into his, and Jon is ready to unravel when her hands curl into his hair. 

He says her name again, this time on something like a whimper. He thinks they should stop before he throws her to the frozen ground and takes her here beside the hot springs. He thinks they should stop before he strips her of her cloak, her dove-gray dress, and licks a hot stripe down her body—her long, smooth body that’s already trembling under his gloved hands’ exploration. He thinks they should stop before she can roll her hips against his again, because it feels so bloody  _ good  _ that he’ll want to do nothing else the rest of their lives. 

_ “Jon...” _ His name is another moan between Sansa’s lips. She kisses him harder, faster, more feverishly than he’d ever thought to be kissed before. Even while his hands grope her, Jon is forever patient and gentle, like he could spend an eternity doing nothing but tracing the shape of her waist, her collarbone, the undersides of her breasts, every dip and curve and scar.  

He arches into her, his body begging for complete fusion with hers, but god they have to  _ stop _ — 

“Damn it.” Jon almost growls as he rips his mouth from hers. Her face is flushed and pupils blown wide, and he’s sure he looks much the same. “Gods, Sansa, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get so carried away.”

“Don’t say that.” Sansa’s fingers twist into his cloak to keep him close. “It’s quite alright to get carried away with your lady wife; in fact I think it’s almost expected of us.” 

Jon chuckles. He rests his forehead against hers and tries to catch his breath. “I suppose that made up for my bollocks proposal. But I promise to give you sweeter words in future.” 

“Oh, Jon…” Sansa sighs, and her senses are filled with the scent of him—snow and pine and firewood. She could drown in the sensation and call it home. “You’re quite sweet to me already.”  

He says nothing to that; it’s precisely what he wants to give to her, sweetness, so he holds her beneath the heart tree, and thanks whatever gods will hear him that she is his. 


	5. never changed by crooked hearts

Bran takes the news of the engagement in stride, as though he had known it was coming. Arya, however, is a bit put-off. Not for any personal grudges, but for the sake of her sister’s happiness. She had been through horrors as Arya had, but neither of them could quite know the other’s feelings. All Arya knows is that she would have gutted Ramsay Bolton like a boar if she’d had the chance. 

“Do you _ want _ to be married again?” she asks Sansa as they walk through the courtyards a few afternoons later. 

“Winterfell needs an alliance, and heirs,” Sansa points out. “I  _ have _ to be married again.”

Arya waves her off. “No, you don’t. Jon wouldn’t  _ make _ you.”

“I know,” Sansa says, and she does. He had said as much when he offered, and it had almost mended her heart so completely that it may never have been broken, to see him look at her so earnestly, his words the most sincere she’s ever heard. “And that’s why I said yes to him.” 

That would have been enough to appease the old Arya, although she would have wondered still if there were more. Now, she knows there is.

“Sansa… Do you love him?”

Sansa sighs, long and low, as though she’s tired of arguing with herself about it. There’s no sense in trying to lie to Arya; there never has been. But since her sister returned to Winterfell, it seemed to Sansa that Arya could spot a lie before you could even think of telling it. It’s rather irksome to have two siblings who know just about everything, and yet Sansa is grateful that they can read her so well. They know just what to say, just when she needs to hear it.

“I do,” she admits, her quiet words carried on the chilly breeze. “I don’t know for how long, but I suspect it’s been longer than even that. I thought of him so much during the war, perhaps because we were meant to find each other first, before you and Bran came home. I confess I’ve thought myself to be the weakest link—I shouldn’t have found any of you first. Jon and I—we had so many arguments—”

“Until you learned he’s not our brother. You always took Mother’s side about Jon,” Arya reminds her gently. “Things would have been different if we had all known from the first. You may have fallen in love with him before Joffrey ever showed up.”

Sansa thinks of how foolish she had been then—no more than any girl her age, so perhaps it had not been foolishness at all. But she’s not sure if knowing of Jon’s true parentage would have made that sort of difference. 

“I don’t know about that,” she tells her sister. “But I’m glad to have him now.”    

Arya is quiet for another heartbeat before she decides that Sansa needs to know. She cocks her head thoughtfully and reveals, “He loves you too, you know.”

Sansa touches her fingers to her lips. She can still feel his kiss from days earlier—the tender intensity, the tingle of a well-loved mouth. She had wondered then if it was love, and she thinks of it now. There is a flare of hope within her, one that she very much wishes to keep alive. She is so tired of feeling that she doesn’t deserve what she wanted before. Why should everyone from Littlefinger to Joffrey to Ramsay make her believe that she’s not worth more than their greed and abuse? Why should she give their memories the satisfaction of her misery, forever suffering at the ghosts of their hands? 

They are dead and gone, and still Sansa stands. They had not given her love, perhaps had not been capable of it, but they can’t take away her chance at having it with someone good now. They cannot take Jon from her.

_ He loves you too, you know.  _

Sansa turns to her sister, and the smiles they exchange are genuine, and faithful. “I hope that he does,” Sansa says, and that is quite enough for them both.


	6. that dream far away

Sansa had not protested, but Jon refuses the bedding ceremony well before their wedding feast. A few of his men had complained—“It’s tradition, my lord,” and all that—but Jon would not budge. Perhaps if he had wed Sansa before… But there is no sense in wondering such things. He will not subject her to more greedy hands and lewd comments. From now on, the only hands she will know are his, and only when she wants them. 

When they arrive in their bedchamber, they do so alone and fully clothed. Sansa is resplendent in her white gown, her hair braided in the Northern style her mother used to wear. It’s the same one Sansa had taken to since returning to Winterfell, but tonight there are winter roses woven into her long red tresses. Jon had nearly lost his breath at the sight of her in the godswood, and thought she was born to wear flowers in her hair. 

Her hands had shaken from cold when they were tied with Jon’s, but he’d gripped her fingers and she had smiled at him like he had brought her the sun. When they sealed their union with a kiss, he’d murmured  _ I love you  _ against her lips. She had not heard him, but he hoped she felt the words between their seeking mouths. 

He would tell her tonight, Jon had sworn to himself. Now, watching the candlelight play upon her skin, he wants to tell her nothing but  _ I love you  _ for however long she would hear it. 

“Did I tell you that you look beautiful?” he asks. The words are not enough, to his mind, but she smiles at them.

“Several times.” 

“Well, I thought you should know.”

Jon takes her hand and traces the lines of her palm, trying to soothe the nerves he sees in her movements. All night, she had smiled readily and laughed loudly. She had danced with Arya and her eyes had glistened at Bran’s toast to her health and happiness with Jon. In many ways, she seemed much the same girl she had been the last time they had been at Winterfell together—years ago, before the wars and all that they had wrought. But Jon had seen her hands shake. It’s a small thing, but it speaks volumes. Jon won’t let her head into their first night together with anything but calm and want and—if he has anything to say about it—enthusiasm.   

“Daenerys seems pleased, doesn’t she?” Sansa’s fingers creep up Jon’s shirtfront to toy with the buttons at the top. Out of nerves or excitement for what’s to come, she’s not quite sure, but she suspects it’s a bit of both. 

“Hmm, she does,” Jon agrees, although he’s more interested in tracing her jawline with careful fingers. They’re wed now, aren’t they? he thinks. There’s no reason for him to be shy with how much he wants his lady wife. “She fancies this whole thing her doing.” 

“It was her idea, at least.”

“Trust me, Sansa,” Jon says, more seriously now, “I’ve thought of this for far longer than she has.” 

A deep pink blush blooms across Sansa’s face, her neck, and Jon wonders how low it travels. He’d like to see. 

He moves to undo the laces of her dress, but Sansa’s hands on his stop him. She thinks of her last marriage bed, when Ramsay had torn her gown and she had been at the mercy of unmerciful hands. Jon would never—she knows he would never—but she needs control, at least in this, the beginning.  

“If you don’t mind, I—” she takes a breath to unfog her mind, to keep herself upright and present— “I would very much like to do that myself.”  

Jon swallows. “Yes, of—of course.” 

He sits on the edge of the bed, hands braced upon his thighs in a vain attempt to steady them. He watches Sansa’s skilled fingers pull apart the ribbons and laces that tie her gown together, and he wonders if she means to torment him so. Every new inch of flesh that’s revealed, and he’s not yet permitted to touch. A shiver of anticipation and want bolts through him, but he’s so intent on Sansa that he barely twitches. 

She stops undressing when she’s left only in her shift and stockings. When she bends to untie the latter’s ribbons, Jon says through the sandpaper dryness of his throat, “Would you keep those on? Just—just for now.”

At that, Sansa can’t help but tease him. “If you rip them, I’m going to be very cross with you.” 

“I’ll try my best, but…” Jon shakes his head, his eyes never leaving her legs. “I’ll be honest, I might not be able to help it. I’ll try to make it worth your while.”

Sansa laughs, the same rich, honest laugh Jon had heard from her all evening. It settles his heart to see her so happy, but something dark and primal unfurls in his stomach when her braid slips over her slim shoulder and a rose petal drifts down, down, to settle on her toes. 

“Come here,” he instructs, and his voice sounds so rough that he may have been moaning into her ear all night already. He certainly plans to. Just watching her divest herself of her dress had made him half-hard in his breeches, and Jon has no illusions as to how he’ll unravel when he has her beneath him. 

Sansa takes the few short steps she needs to get to him, and Jon pulls her into his lap. “You’re as lovely out of your fine gowns as you are in them,” he tells her, because it’s true and because he wants to make her blush again. As she’s clad only in her shift and stockings, Jon sees that that blush does indeed spread near everywhere. 

“You’re making me nervous,” she confesses on another laugh, this one smaller and shakier than the one before. 

“I’m sorry.” His words are truthful. “I only meant… I’m rather in awe. I never thought I’d get to marry you.” 

“So you did want this, then?” Sansa at last voices a fear that, deep down, she knows she need not have. But they had only discussed her comforts, her desires. Little had been said about what Jon wanted, and Sansa—however paranoid she may be—worries that she was never part of what he had dreamt of in his heart of hearts. “It wasn’t only to appease Daenerys, or our men? I know you said it wasn’t about that, but—”

“Sansa, of course I want this,” Jon says, unable to bear her doubts now. She is too dear, too precious to him for her to believe any different. “I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if I didn’t want you. I only worry that you won’t be happy, that I won’t be enough—”

Sansa silences him with her lips on his. Wouldn’t be enough? her mind echoes. How could he not be enough? His gentle hands, his warm heart, his hot mouth working furiously at hers now that their lips have touched. She would never want for anything again. Affection, respect, admiration—she is overcome whenever she looks upon him, and Jon has proven that he returns those feelings in kind. It’s more than she could have hoped, more than she had allowed herself to believe since the wars began.

She twists her fingers into his hair and murmurs, “You’re more than enough. You’re everything, everything I’ve ever wanted—” she arches against him when he bites her lip and his hands press into the small of her back— “Jon, I love you.”

He stops. Just for a beat, just long enough to look at her in wonder and worship. She loves him. The words stutter and halt and start again in his mind. _She loves him._

“Hell, Sansa…” Jon’s eyes are on her swollen lips, then flick upwards to meet her bright gaze. “I’m so in love with you I’ve hardly known what to do with myself.” 

Sansa chokes out something like a sob, something like a long-held breath she had not dared to release until she knew. She had not meant to say the words aloud, not yet, but he had held her, touched her, like she was spun sugar ready to crumble and he would never, ever make her crumble. How could she not love such a man? How could she not tell him? 

There is nothing but love, love,  _ love, _ and Sansa’s heart is fit to burst from the relief of it. 

“Gods, but I’m going to make love to you all night.” Jon’s hands span her waist while his mouth opens on her neck. She is soft and sweet and she is all, all his.

He had been able to think of little else but that first kiss they’d shared in the godswood. It had driven him near mad most nights, wanting her. Now, he could have her, and he won’t allow her to entertain doubts or discomfort or fears any longer. She is his, as he is hers, and he will show her what that means to him.

Enough of the wanting, the waiting. She is in his bed— _their_ bed—and he is going to love her into the goose-down mattress until there is nothing but her and him and a snowfall of feathers around them.

Jon readjusts their position so that Sansa sits on the edge of the bed, and he sinks to the floor in front of her. He smooths his hands up her thighs, pushing her shift up as he goes. He wants to explore every bit of her, every freckle and scar and secret corner that no one had thought to touch before because they had been greedy and mad and wrong. They had taken so much, and Jon will give it back to her in spades. 

“Jon? What—?”

He quirks an eyebrow up at her. “I told you I’d bend the knee to you, didn’t I?”

Sansa’s laugh is breathy when he rolls down her stockings to tongue the crease behind her knee. “This cannot  _ possibly _ be what you meant—”

“Mmmm, in part,” he confesses.

“You don’t have to—”

“I _want_ to,” Jon says so emphatically that he practically groans the words. She is soft and sweet and she is home and she is  _ everything _ to him. His fingers latch around her ankles, and he hitches her feet over his shoulders. “Why is it so hard for you to believe? Sansa, I’d fight a hundred more wars if it meant coming home to you, if it meant I’d come back to Winterfell just to bury my face in your cunt—”

_ “Jon.” _

_ “Sansa.”  _

She laughs again—god, he could drown in the sound of it—but her hands are back in his hair and she  _ wants _ this.  “Is that really how you speak to your queen?”

“Hmmm.” Jon noses the edge of her smallclothes. “If it makes my queen wet and wanting for me.”

“And here I’d thought you sweet,” Sansa says airily, her nerves dissipating in light of her love for him, his for her, and the way he touches her—maiden and mother, how could she resist the way he touches her? 

She had opened her heart to him—her boarded and shut heart, and all he’d had to do was coax its locks with the way that he was— _ brave and gentle and strong _ —and it had been so easy. She had said  _ I love you  _ and now nothing felt as though it had been broken before.      

“This  _ is _ sweet. Oh, love, it is.” Jon drags his teeth across the soft flesh of her inner thigh and he feels her shake.  _ Mine mine mine.  _ “I’ve dreamt of tasting you, imagined the way you’d cling to me. Darling, I promise, I’ll do nothing but make you feel good.”

He drags his tongue over her smallclothes and Sansa heaves a sigh of assent, her grip in his hair tightening. Jon tears the undergarment from her and she makes no objection. He could rip her stockings for all she cares now, if only it means keeping his mouth on her. In her days of innocence and modesty, when she had thought wistfully of marriage, Sansa had never once thought something like this, something so wicked, so wretchedly deviant, could be so  _ wonderful. _

Jon’s mouth is on her cunt and he is feasting like a man starved. He whispers her name as though he’s praying to her, arching his body closer every time he swipes his tongue across and into her. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, and adds the deft movements of his fingers to her pleasure. He wants to touch her, taste her, everywhere, all at once. “Fuck, Sansa, I want you,  _ gods,  _ how I’ve wanted you—”

Sansa yanks his hair so that she loses the feel of his mouth, but his eyes are on her again. His are dark and deep and wanting, wanting, wanting, and she’s sure she looks no different. He is hers as she is his, and they are one. 

“Take me,” she says, and tugs at his curls a little more to get him moving, but he hardly needs the encouragement. He’s stripping his shirt as he climbs atop her, pushing her back into the mattress, and she can feel how much he wants her pressed against her thigh. He’s plucking kisses from her lips and peppering them anywhere he can reach, paying special mind to the slender column of her throat, marking her alabaster skin so that everyone, everyone knows…

He tears her shift as he had her underthings, but leaves her stockings intact; they create the most delicious friction against his skin, and hell if she doesn’t look like a goddess come to earth in them, only them. 

“I love you,” he tells her, over and over again as she jerks the laces of his breeches to loosen them. He palms her breasts and licks the curve of her collarbone. “My queen, my lady wife, _Sansa_ , how I’ve adored you—”

He kicks his pants down, his feet tangling with Sansa’s as she helps him. She’s giggling like mad and Jon’s smile widens with every one of her hiccups. He cradles the slope of her neck, reveling in her skin and in the way that she looks at him, as though she’d only been waiting for him to come to her with words of love and longing, and now that he has she couldn’t stand to let him go. 

She is bare before him, desire and love as plain in her gaze as anything Jon has seen before. In fact he can’t believe he’d never seen it before. He had doubted so much, too much, without thinking for a moment that she had been doing the same. Now, he traces her lips with careful fingertips, and then presses a kiss to the hollow at the base of her long and love-bruised throat. 

_ No more,_ he promises once again. No more doubt or fear or second-guessing. _ She loves me,  _ he thinks, and he will never fail to marvel at the fact. There is nothing but her, and him, and soon enough a snowfall of goose feathers around them. 

“I love you,” Jon murmurs, and Sansa mouths the words along with him. He has done everything because of her,  _ for _ her, and she has waited and she has fought and now she is where she was meant to be all along:

At Winterfell, with a man worthy of her, and she of him. 


End file.
